Graffiti wars continue in Worcester

Friday

Jan 17, 2014 at 6:00 AMJan 17, 2014 at 3:16 PM

By Steven H. Foskett Jr. TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

WORCESTER — In light of a recent rash of graffiti being plastered over large sections of the city, residents, business owners and public officials Thursday tried to strike a balance between ensuring the vandalism doesn't linger and cutting victims some slack.

"We are looking at how we can do our enforcement better," Amanda Wilson, director of health and housing inspections for the city's Department of Inspectional Services, said at a meeting of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety.

City councilors, including Morris A. Bergman, have been critical of the city's system of using constable-served letters to residents and business owners ordering them to comply with a city ordinance requiring prompt removal of graffiti. The sheer volume of tagging incidents toward the end of the year has highlighted the need to start a conversation on changing the ordinance, Mr. Bergman said.

At the Webster House Restaurant Thursday, Ms. Wilson said those concerns have been heard, and said her department has tweaked its policy to instead do "educational visits" to inform property owners about the ordinance and to provide tips for graffiti removal.

The ordinance requires property owners to remove graffiti from buildings within seven days or face a $25 per day fine.

Still, Ms. Wilson noted that the 2008 ordinance was passed for a reason — property owners were not removing graffiti.

William Breault, chairman of the alliance, said it can be quite difficult to get hold of business owners who don't remove graffiti from their properties. And residents pointed to graffiti as a symptom of increasing gang activity in many city neighborhoods.

Paula Bouthiller said her front door was recently tagged. She said she had trouble getting rid of people who were illegally squatting on the second floor of her Harrison Street home; she said she has been threatened.

She said it's unacceptable, and the city should pick up the tab for cleaning off the graffiti.

Deputy Police Chief Steve Sargent talked about the arrests of two Leicester men, 21-year-old Danny Nguyen and 20-year-old Jesse Damelio, who were in court this week to face six counts of vandalism. A prosecutor said a continuing investigation would link the pair with 126 total counts of vandalism across the city.

Deputy Chief Sargent said police investigations, including security camera footage, helped build the case for a handful of charges, but he gave credit to thorough photography and documentation by the city Department of Public Works in making a bigger case against the pair.

Ron K. Brown of the Department of Public Works, who oversees graffiti removal for the city, said he was at the meeting more as a concerned resident of the Grafton Hill area, but he also defended the ordinance.

He said he believes the ordinance gives property owners plenty of time to clean up graffiti, and said enforcement rarely leads to actual fines.

He said he understood the enormity of the recent outbreak firsthand.

"These guys I chased for three months," Mr. Brown said.

He said his team documented probably 250 of the same three tags Mr. Nguyen and Mr. Damelio are suspected of spraying.

He said out of the 126 properties documented in connection with the charges against the pair, 88 are "clean right now."

One of those properties is owned by Mr. Bergman. He said he isn't proposing wholesale changes to the graffiti-removal ordinance, but only wants some adjustment when it comes to giving notice. He proposed a switch away from constable-served notices to registered mail. He also said it's worth taking another look at the wording of the request.

Property owner Arthur Mooradian said graffiti should be removed promptly, but said he thought the letter the city gives to victims "does need to be softened up a bit."

Steven Rothschild, who owns a building on Jackson Street, said the constable-served letter makes him angry. He said it makes him want to paint a different message on the side of his building, directed at the city.

Worcester County Sheriff Lewis Evangelidis said he's had some success employing anti-graffiti teams in other communities, including Fitchburg, and pledged a similar level of assistance to Worcester.

He said nothing is official yet, but that he envisioned using inmate labor to help attack the problem.